I have been wrestling now for a very long time, and I have learned a lot of things about the sport. It has been a lot of hard work, learning, and persistence, but I am very grateful for the lessons that I have learned about wrestling and about life. You see there are a lot of ways that wrestling mirrors life. Here are 5 lessons that I have learned from wrestling that have helped me to deal with some of the challenges and struggles of life.
1) It takes time and effort to get good at something – There are a lot of people who would like to tell you that you can lose your belly in a week, become a millionaire overnight, or fix relationships instantly. Generally those are the people who are looking for a fool and their money to quickly be departed. You can’t blame people for wanting the quick fix. Shoot I wish I could have a lot of awesome things happen in my life without working hard for it, but that just isn’t how life works. To get good at something you need to take time daily to embrace the struggle and focus your energy on getting better. Going through the motions is definitely not good enough, especially in the very competitive world that we live in. The only way that you are going to be able to unlock hidden talents and abilities is through hard work and mental focus. You have to be specific in what it is that you want to improve, and then it takes a lot of repetition. Are there some things that are easier to grasp than others? Of course, but even a so called “natural athlete” has to work hard to develop their skills to reach their full potential. There was a study that was done to determine how long it takes to become an expert at something, and the results came back that it would take an average of 10,000 hours or seven years. That is a long time, but if you are willing to pay the price, there isn’t a better feeling than being the best at something.
2) You will fail at some point, but you can’t let it stop you – Everybody loses at some point. It doesn’t matter who you are. The best example of collegiate wrestling success would be Cael Sanderson. He was undefeated throughout his college career, but even he had losses in high school and in practice before he was able to put together such an amazing string of victories. You have to learn to take the winning and the losing together. What many people suffer from is that after they have tried something once and failed that they just give up. Can you imagine what our world would be like if babies would stop trying to walk after they fell down for the first time? Losing and failing is not fun, but if you can learn a lesson from your failure, then you have gained a very important asset called experience. You can then use that experience to succeed in the future. So recognize that whenever you are starting something new or if you have been doing something for a while that yes you will fail in some capacity, but you need to get back up and keep trying if you really want to succeed.
3) It’s either you or him and the aggressive man wins – If you look at wrestling matches, or any sport for that matter, you will tend to see that the aggressor is generally the one that wins. If you are the first to score you put yourself at a definite advantage. I am not saying that you have to be mean and nasty to get whatever it is that you want, but you do need to be proactive and be aggressive in accomplishing your goals. There are many people who will tell you no. These people may even be very close to you, but it is important that you are aggressive in fighting for your dreams. You even have to be selfish in the sense that you are going to do whatever it takes to accomplish the task that you have set out to do. That may mean that you have committed to work out every day at 6:00 p.m. after work, and then the next thing you know, your friends are going to want you to go out with them to grab a bite to eat. You have to be selfish and do what is best for you. Your friends will still like you, and they will respect you even more after you accomplish the goals that you set out accomplish. Be aggressive. Be selfish.
4) You have to evaluate yourself and look for the good and the bad – One of the benefits of having a coach is that you have someone to help push you and see the good and the bad things that you are doing. Coaches are great and they can help you out tremendously, but ultimately you have to hold yourself accountable to be your toughest critic and your most faithful cheerleader. I know that may sound like a paradox, but if you want to be great then you need to be completely honest with yourself. You need to look at what you’re doing and see if you are working hard enough. However, you can’t get caught up in negative thinking and negative self-talk or you will sink yourself faster than the Titanic. You have to be able to recognize when you are doing things right no matter how small that is and reward yourself for the progress that you make. Use the carrot and the stick. They’re both effective tools at getting positive results.
5) Your time is limited – Every season comes to an end as well as every athletic career. This season of life will eventually come to an end for all of us. Like someone said, “You can’t make it out of this life alive.” I don’t like to think of the end, but if we accept that then we can make the best of the time that we have. We can give it everything that we’ve got so that we can accomplish the things and be the people that we want to. Life is too short to waste it. Don’t waste time working on things that are of no value. There are moves that I don’t work on in the wrestling room because I know that I will never use them in a competition. There are training methods that just don’t work for me. There are people and coaches who just don’t work for me so I am not going to waste my time spending all of my time with them. Really there is nothing worse than doing things that you don’t want to do with people that you don’t want to be around. Sometimes you tolerate it for a short time to ultimately get something else that you want, but also realize there may be the possibility of doing things you enjoy with people that you like that will also give you the end result that you are seeking. Just remember that our time here is short so take advantage of every minute that you have.
There are plenty of other things that I have learned through the great sport of wrestling, and I am sure that if I sat long enough to think about it I could list hundreds of them. I hope that these five lessons that I have learned can be as helpful to you as they have been to me. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

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